How did you guys learn at first, did you have lessons, teach yourself, or anything else? Right now I'm teaching myself.

i HAD to taught myself to play because there are no good teachers here in my town...

but since you are in US you can easily search for a teacher... it will help you a lot...

the internet has been my main teacher (including TB of course :D )... also some books that i have bought in some trips to the USA.

i´m still waiting for a good teacher to come around here :(

:) I am teaching myself.. but with the help of videos and books. I also watch of ppl play bass.. and learn from them... I know a guy who was in a band around nova scotia like 15 years ago.. and he and his wife can play bass really well. So i already learned alot from him telling me different things about basses. :D But some day soon im gonna spend a day at his house and he'll teach my stuff im having trouble with and ill get to use his basses. :p

Originally posted by Dave Castelo


the internet has been my main teacher (including TB of course :D ).:(
Same here.. Tabs are a real big help and really easy to learn.

I was lucky enough to play with a band right from the start and a month after getting the bass, I got a teacher, he's a guitarist, but the theory is the same for any instrument. He's helped me out alot and we both like the same music. METAL!!! That and listening to cd's and playing along to them.

i take lessons and it helps so much and i also take theroy lessons which is alot harder to learn by yourself

I started teaching myself, because every teacher that I found wanted to start me off with "Coming 'Round The Mountain", and I didn't wanna learn that (arrogance). So, pulled out my CD's, and got started. 4 years later, I still haven't had a teacher, but I will get one. Jeff Berlin said it best, "There are some things you just can't figure out on your own."

I'm teaching myself becuase im too poor to have lessons, it's a sad musical exsistince:(

The hard way.

yeah i tought myself also.

I took lessons for around a year until that guy moved to Cali for a producing job (very musical person he was) then I took "lessons" for another 6 months, I say "lessons" because it was manely jamming or whatever came to his mind to work on. So I guess with that guy it was lessons on how to play better with other people. That guy moved too. :( Now there are no more people that give lessons (only know of one more bassist here that might be able to teach me stuff)

I learnt the organ and piano as a kid - hated it, but glad that I did it now. Picked up the bass 10 years ago to play for church - have been playing weekly over that period. Self-taught from different instructional books and videos, as well as from playing in various bands and settings. May take lessons soon to tidy up my technique as I am recording more now.

I STARTED by myself, but then took lessons (well, AM taking lessons... it's a gradual process.). And, I must say, lessons are worth every penny. You get more progress out of one session with a teacher than probably a year by yourself.

I started with lessons but never took the instrument serious so I just jammed or tabbed out grooves. I'm taking lessons and starting to gig. So the lessons are invaluable for playing with others and being able to communicate musically.

I tought myself to play bass five years ago. Never had a teacher, except the internet of course. It seems much more fun to me to try and explore the bass by myself and not have people show me. kinda fuuny though because i would "invent" techniques that i didnt know already existed like double stroking and double thumping. i would get lessons if ummm wooten could teach me :p
otherwise i belive im somewhat too advanced for the local teachers to teach me anything.

I taught myself. i dont know of any teahcers, or any bassplayers around where i am. it was fun though. Learning on my own. i would say for anyone teaching themselfs, when you first pick up your bass, learn some songs you like, or else you wont like ANY insturment. we all know that its a good thing to learn scales. but how fun are they to play.....so learn some songs first. so you WANT to keep playing it, and then hit the books.

Self-taught.

I played clarinet, bass clarinet, and alto sax in my high school band. Three of us (high school band members) were learning guitar on our own. After a few months we decided to start a band. One guy said "I'll play lead", another said "I'll play rhythm", I said "What's left". They said "Bass" to which I replied "What's that?"

Up until that time (9th grade), I had never heard of or knowingly seen a bass guitar (I led a sheltered life).

I started learning bass lines by playing them on a six string electric (not a bass). I quickly learned to read bass clef notation and played all the bass lines from a Beatles' music book. The first few times we performed, I played the six string tuned down an octave running through 4 department store beginner guitar amps chained together at the inputs. The first time I saw a bass guitar was 10 minutes before we were to perform for the high school. One of our guitar players borrowed a bass guitar and huge bass amp and brought it to the school. The first time I played a bass guitar was during that performance.

Self taught, with a little guidance from a couple of friends and God.:)

Learned to play in my dad's church 20+ years ago.

Originally posted by Punk_Princess19

Same here.. Tabs are a real big help and really easy to learn.

well i didn´t mean that!

i mean TB as a way to learn by reading post by really talented people here!

i started out, with a teacher, but not with him for very long. he showed me the bassics :) fingering, left hand technique and slap. was only with him for a few months. then on my own for a year or 2 then took some(or tried) from a guy i met, found out that i did better by myself.

I never understood why people don't get teachers...how do you teach yourself something you don't know? :confused:

Originally posted by Angus
I never understood why people don't get teachers...how do you teach yourself something you don't know? :confused:

Getting a teacher is great but I think you can teach your stuff from books and other material by yourself - but doing it with a teacher will probably be more fun and easier. For instance, I have a teacher at school that I go to 2 hours a week who teaches me music theory. Now, I could learn all that stuff by myself but it would go slower...eh I dunno. I guess it all comes down to lessons are only useful if you put some practice effort into it yourself.

/lovebown

I started with two and a half years of lessons at the local music school...in the beginning, I had to relearn my technique two times! (my first bass-teacher was a guitar-teacher. :()
I'm the only one in my two families who plays an instrument, so I don't really have it in my genes or so. (considering you can have that...musicality is more instrumental then primordial)

I'm now studying bass on my own, but I'm progressing less fast. I've been playing bass for five years now, and in my second year I learned to play Teen Town...but I never tried more complicated pieces without a teacher.

So I guess a teacher can be good for you to let you perform/do things you wouldn't normally choose to do...but a band could function that way as well.

Im pretty much self taught on the bass, I had a few informal lessons here and there from friends to help get me over a hump when i was trying to learn something specific.

Also had music classes for a couple of years. and that laid the ground work for reading for me.

I am completely self taught.

I never understood why people don't get teachers...how do you teach yourself something you don't know?

Its not that hard if you have patience. I think its better because you develope a style all your own.
Jimi Hendrix taught himself to play.
Jim

Self taught. I picked up the bass because, like so many people it seems, I wanted to be in a band and bass was the the only instrument left to play.

I played along with a lot of records and learned from the occasional video or book.

It takes discipline to force yourself to practise things that really stretch you, but I'm quite happy with how I've learned.

wow MatW, your right, i wonder how many people picked up the bass out of need, and then loved it. i was playing guitar........but then my friend said he was going to pick it up. and i was like,,,,"Well, that bass sounds cool, i mean, people always want more bass." So, there we go. i had no teacher. learning by yourself is more fun, and chalenging, like i had no idea how to slap, but read you do it with your thumb and fingers, and sorta got the idea.

I had played clarinet for two years in elementary school and took some organ lessons my senior year in high school. From that I knew how to read music.

I started out on bass with the Carol Kaye books (back in 1974 it was that or Mel Bay) but didn't get much of anywhere, then I took lessons for a few months in 1978 (again using the Kaye books...with a teacher to make sense out of them). Since then I've continued that pattern of self-instruction interspersed with formal lessons.

Music theory and piano classes during college in 1980, some BG lessons again in 81, a few months of URB lessons in 82, more BG lessons around 1992, URB again in 94 and I just started lessons again in April.

The studying I've done since the 80s was focused strictly on solutions to problems I was having on gigs. The lessons in 92 were focused totally on rhyhmic accuracy and right hand muting. I'm currently working on learning how to walk over jazz standards as my current blues band is doing a number of jazzier tunes where I had been feeling a bit uncomfortable. I figure I'll probably continue those studies for another 6 months or so until I feel ready to continue on my own.

I found that once you get to a more advanced level of playing, you can pick up stuff in a few lessons that will give you months or years of things to woodshed.

Originally posted by warwicknut
. . every teacher that I found wanted to start me off with "Coming 'Round The Mountain", and I didn't wanna learn that.

Do you have the tab for that Warwicknut? The chords would be a help too!

I was self taught for years. I started buying tab books of my favorite bands/songs initially, as well as a really basic "this is the fretboard and here are the notes" type of book. When I started really getting serious about stuff, I started taking lessons and completely weened myself from tab. Eventually, whether you are willing to admit it or not, you will need to find a good teacher if you want to get better.